Gossip

You know you are not popular when people refuse to celebrate your success with you. Donald Trump’s inauguration into presidency is slated to happen on January 20, 2017 and the day is set to include music and dance performances by leading artists. However, it seems celebrities are refusing to perform at the ceremony left and right with Moby being the latest to say no to the president elect’s invitation. Reportedly, many high profile artists have been asked to sing at the ceremony, but refused the offer. David Foster, Celine Dion, Garth Brooks, Elton John and Andrea Bocelli are among some of the big names who have refused to participate in Trump’s inauguration.

Others, like Rebecca Ferguson, have agreed to perform under certain conditions. The singer of X Factor fame says she is willing to perform at the inauguration ceremony if he allowed her to sing ‘Strange Fruit’. Ferguson states that the song has enormous historical importance and she would be happy to attend the event if allowed to sing the song. Current sources state that Ferguson has since declined to perform though she sends America her love.

People who are definitely performing are the Rockettes dance group, who regularly perform at The City Hall and 16-year-old Jackie Evancho who was the runner up in 2010’s America’s Got Talent. Evancho has continued her musical performances and is scheduled to sing ‘The Star Spangled Banner’ at the celebration of Trump’s presidential win, though she has so far been the only solo singer to do so. The Mormon Tabernacle Choir has also agreed to perform at the event, though the 350-strong group has lost one member who quit claiming she could not throw roses at Hitler. Other celebrities that have been listed for performance tentatively but none are confirmed and with less than 8 days till the event, we hope Mr Trump can get his ducks in a row.

President-elect Donald Trump's pick for secretary of state broke with Trump on the issue of nuclear proliferation today during the first of what's expected to be a two-day confirmation hearing. Sen. Ed Markey, D-Massachusetts, conducted the relevant questioning as Rex Tillerson appeared before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. "Mr. Tillerson, do you agree with President-elect Trump when he said, 'It wouldn't be a bad thing for us if Japan, South Korea or Saudi Arabia acquired nuclear weapons?'" Markey asked. "Senator, I don't think anyone advocates for more nuclear weapons on the planet," Tillerson replied. Markey pressed if Tillerson agreed with Trump that proliferation would not be a bad thing. "I do not agree," Tillerson said. "Senator, I think if confirmed, it is a vital, one of the vital roles for the State Department to play ... has to be the pursuit of nuclear nonproliferation," Tillerson continued. "We just simply cannot back away from our commitment to see a reduction in the number of these weapons on the planet." But Tillerson came to Trump's defense when asked about the president-elect's tweet saying the U.S. must "expand" its nuclear capability.

FBI Investigatigation

Explosive but unsubstantiated allegations suggesting Donald Trump was compromised by Russian agents and in league with Russian hackers appeared in a dossier given to the FBI in August by Democratic political operatives who later gave it to news organizations, including ABC News. The document has circulated in the intelligence community and was reportedly raised last week during classified intelligence briefings to President Obama and President-elect Trump. Trump and his aides expressed outrage yesterday that anyone would take the uncorroborated reports seriously. “FAKE NEWS - A TOTAL POLITICAL WITCH HUNT!” Trump wrote on Twitter, in an apparent reference to the news reports. On ABC News’ “Good Morning America,” Trump aide Kellyanne Conway slammed the allegations, saying, “Just to smear the president-elect of the United States, we now have intelligence officials divulging information that they are sworn not to divulge.” “I don’t even think this is fake news, I think this is just fake. I would take the ‘news’ word right out of it,” she added. Meanwhile, in Russia, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has also been critical of the allegations, saying, “It’s an absolute spoof story. It’s absolute fabrication. It’s complete nonsense.” Portions of the dossier outlining supposed ties between Trump’s team and Russian government agents started to surface over the summer based partly on information from a former British intelligence agent who was working for anti-Trump political operatives. The partisan operatives circulated portions of the documents to federal officials and reporters, including to ABC News, both before and after the 2016 election. Eventually, Republican Sen. John McCain received a copy and forwarded it directly to FBI Director James Comey. Comey was pressed during hearings on Capitol Hill on Tuesday as to whether the FBI is investigating the allegations. He declined to answer, citing agency policy. But a senior official briefed on the case said the allegations were too serious to ignore. Among the claims are allegations that Trump was personally compromised by the Russians during a 2013 trip to Moscow and that Trump aides were later involved with the Russians’ hack of the Democratic Party. Some specific allegations have brought sharp denials. A Trump lawyer named in the report, Michael Cohen, called “laughably false” the assertion that his Ukrainian-born father-in-law had a dacha near Russian President Vladimir Putin’s. “I don’t even think my father-in-law has ever been to Moscow,” Cohen told ABC News. “I wonder who’s living in the dacha.” Another suggestion in the documents given to the FBI — that Cohen supposedly met with the Russians in Prague, Czech Republic, last August — is also false, he said. “I’ve never actually walked the land in Prague, and last August I was not in Prague,” he said. The dossier provides no back-up evidence, but the claims were hard to ignore, officials told ABC News. And the allegations gained currency in intelligence and law enforcement circles as Trump continued his unorthodox defense of Russian hacking and unrestrained praise of Putin. In May, Trump said he “respects Putin,” calling him “a strong leader.” And, despite the consensus of the nation’s top intelligence agencies, Trump has continued to question whether Russia had a hand in the hacking of Democratic National Committee computers. “I don’t think anybody knows it was Russia that broke into the DNC,” he said at one point. David Kramer, a Russia expert who served as an assistant secretary of state under George W. Bush, said he was “surprised by Mr. Trump’s public admiration for Mr. Putin.” “Generally Republicans have taken a harder line toward Russian aggression, toward Russian human rights abuses, toward any Russian efforts in interfering in other countries’ internal affairs,” Kramer said. “It is not generally consistent with what I myself have experienced and what I have seen from others, so it raises some questions in my mind about what’s driving it.”